


A Question of Time

by Entropy House (AnonEhouse)



Category: Drake's Venture (1980), Question Time (TV) BBC
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Crack, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/534129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/Entropy%20House
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A future version of 'Question Time' a BBC topical debate TV show, uses time travel to bring the principals involved into the studio to discuss what happened with Francis Drake and Thomas Doughty during the circumnavigation. </p><p>(This was one of those stories where the research-procrastination took forever, but then, I love research-procrastination.)</p><p>Future DV fans are in the story, but since <i>I</i> am not, I don't think you can call this a true Mary Sue. Can you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question of Time

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

"Now, we have a rather special edition of Question of Time today. At least we will hope so," David Dimbleby the XXXIVth remarked to his audience, flicking an imaginary speck from his ultra-nuvearoa leg-tights. "As we all know, history is a matter of opinion.

"And yes, we've all formed opinions of our guests-to-be, how could we not? The massive grassroots campaign to 'set the record straight' more than eight centuries ago was emotionally appealing and struck a resounding chord with our British love of fair play and support of the underdog, even the eccentric. Conjecture and logical reasoning can only go so far, however.

"Was Francis Drake truly a megalomaniac and sadist? Was his Queen a heartless politician? Was Thomas Doughtie really possessed of the universe's most stunning eyelashes? Well, that's what we're here to find out. 

"As ever, our guests will remain safely behind a quarantine field until it is time to return them to their proper time. On return, the amnesia-ray will prevent any foreknowledge from interfering with history." 

The audience shifted restlessly. The prologue was legally necessary, but they all knew it by heart.

"And now. It is... A Question of Time." David nodded and a glow spread over the five comfortable chairs set around him. He was untouched by the golden light, the dimness surrounding him the hole in the doughnut.

"Good morning, Your Majesty," David said, making the appropriate bow towards Queen Elizabeth, who had apparently been snatched from time in the middle of giving her pet dog a tidbit, leaning forward, and smiling indulgently.

Elizabeth Regina looked around her in astonishment, but quickly regained her aplomb and realigned her features in regal hauteur. Dropping the bit of muffin to the floor she said, "Sirrah, you have not been presented to my court."

"I beg your indulgence for the oversight, your Majesty, it could not be avoided." David turned to the occupant of the chair on her right hand side, who was reddening with anger. "I apologize to you as well, Sir Francis."

The 'sir' made Drake blink. "Art thou mad? How came we here? Tis some vile sorcery of thine, Master Doughtie, I'll warrant!" Drake turned his fury on the man seated beside him.

"You accuse me again without basis! 'twas not enough that I go meek to the slaughter as any lamb, yet you must .." Thomas moved his hands to the arms of his chair, preparatory to rising. His expression changed from anger to astonishment as he failed to get up.

"The restraint fields are for your own safety," David said. "And now I should like to introduce our remaining two guests. Representative of the clergy, the Right Reverend chaplain Fletcher."

The priest was holding onto his cross so tightly his knuckles were white. "This surely must be the work of the devil," he muttered.

"Not quite, the principles behind time-travel are quite beyond me, but I am told they are purely scientific. You are in the future, not in hell, Reverend," David told him before turning to the last of his guests. "And representing the common man, Ned Bright."

Boos and hisses were heard from the audience. Ned looked very pale and nervous. David smiled in a slightly malicious fashion. "And now it's time for the first question. Each of you," he said as he looked at the 'guests', "will be given the opportunity to respond to the question, and to rebut each other, if you wish."

"And what will you do, thou vile apparition, if we say naught at all?" Drake shouted.

"What I usually do." David's smile was bland. "The questions will go around counter-clock-wise--- that's widdershins to you, I believe, --starting with her Majesty." He pressed a button and a floating hologram of text appeared. He read it aloud, "When Drake conducted the trial against Doughtie on charges of mutiny and treason, did he in fact possess a commission from Queen Elizabeth giving him the authority to do so?"

Queen Elizabeth snapped open her fan and waved it slowly. "Do you doubt the word of my good knight-to-be?" Her eyes were cool as she looked at him. 

"In point of fact, that is the question, there have always been doubts," David told her. "I should think you would gladly seize the opportunity to clear his name."

Drake growled and glared at David. "My Queen knows I act only with the good of her throne at heart. It was not to enrich myself that I sought treasure!"

"Clockwise is the other way, Sir Francis," David pointed out.

Queen Elizabeth fanned herself and glanced at Drake. She said softly, "I presume that at the time of this trial, your holds were heavy laden with treasure, such that a man might be tempted to the infamy of treason against Me."

Drake's eyes lowered. "They shall be, ere I return home to England."

Apparently giving up on keeping to his order of precedence, David looked at Ned. "Do you believe your captain had such a commission?"

"Erm. Aye," Ned mumbled. He coughed and spoke louder when Drake turned his eyes on him. "I... I saw it my own self! Twas on the captain's desk, writ plain and large as could be!"

Doughtie laughed. "I doubt thee could write thine own name, thou perjurer and arse-kiss."

"Ye're the arse-kiss! After Brewer he was! Sayin' 'e had uses for a trumpeter's lips!"

Doughtie sneered. "Naught but muck slips from thy lips: thou who dost batten on calumny and spew out offal."

David saw that Fletcher was cringing in his seat and not about to add to the discussion. "Yes, well, it seems we're at an impasse on that. Next question." He read it aloud, "'Why did Drake change the name of the _Pelican_ to the _Golden Hinde_ against the tradition that said renaming a ship was unlucky?'" In an aside to the studio audience, David said, "Well, to be perfectly fair, at the time in which our panel was assembled, this event hadn't taken place." 

Doughtie looked at Drake. He went silent for a moment. "I could conjecture logical reason, yet I should hope Christopher Hatton a man of more stalwart character than to be moved by such petty flattery."

Drake smiled coldly. "An I shew the man the colour of gold, I think his loyalty 'twill prove dross."

Doughtie shook his head. "'tis no concern of mine, I must admit. In the morn, I go before the one true judge, who knows the truth of all things." His face became serene.

Fletcher nodded. "You will, I am sure of it, go to our maker with clean hands and heart." He looked daggers at Drake. "Unlike some of our company."

Drake said, "Keep thy mind on thy devotions, Fletcher. Pray for thyself. Ye may well need God's aid if thou keepest not thy sly thoughts collared and chained!"

Fletcher paled. "You wouldst threaten a man of God?"

"I will suffer no insubordination! Keep silent or, by our good Lord, I shall make thee silent as any tomb!"

Doughtie smiled. "I see you answer our good Fletcher's question most neatly, Captain General."

Queen Elizabeth had been watching the byplay shrewdly. "Captain-general?"

Doughtie made a seated half-bow to her. "E'en so, your majesty. General to our fleet-- such as it be."

"Ah." Queen Elizabeth fanned herself slowly. 

"Aye," Bright said vigorously. "The _gentlemen_ didn't like to take orders. They, bein' all high-born an' o'er proud, thought to ..." He went silent when the Queen glanced his way, with an expression of one encountering a foul odor.

Drake met her eyes straightly. "At sea there must be only one authority. Else all is lost. I had no time to convince or cajole. When the wind rises, all hands must leap at one command."

David cleared his throat. "Yes, well, that brings us to the next question. Why, Sir Francis, did you feel it necessary to execute the man you claimed as your only true friend? Was it solely in order to prove you were in command?"

"It was my RIGHT! As captain, my word was law and he defied me!"

"The statement of pirate is fulled with quite ignorant of any international laws,"* a voice rang out from the audience. A tall woman rose from her seat and pointed at Drake. "You liar! You did it because you were jealous! Because Thomas is better looking than you, and smarter, and ..."

David cleared his throat again, much louder. "You will have to resume your seat and be silent, young woman, or I will have security escort you from the building."

The woman laughed. "Security is with us! Everyone is with us." She waved her hand and everyone stood up and the blue-suited security guards joined them. Her eyes glowed. "We're here to save Thomas Doughtie!"

"Who ARE you?" David snapped. 

"We are the Deeveesqueers!" 

"What? The Deevee's Queers? Who's the DiskVidder?" David is totally flustered.

"No, no, we're not queer. Well, not all of us," she said as a handsome young man elbowed her. "We've come to save Thomas Doughtie!"

"Well, you can't," David said, petulantly. "And you're spoiling the show. It's not supposed to be edited, you know, but this will have to be cut out." He made a throat-cutting motion with his hand.

Doughtie made a strangled noise. David looked at him and coughed. "I do beg your pardon. I'm very sorry, but you must understand. Your execution is not only an historical fact, it's a vital one. We can't ..."

"Maybe you can't, but we can, and we will." The leader of the Deevesqueers stepped onto the stage and aimed a small device at Doughtie. The handsome young man next to her went to Doughtie and took his hands. 

"Come on with me, love, you wouldn't believe the things we can do nowadays with lace and velvet!"

Doughtie blushed furiously. "Sirrah, you mistake me!"

The man winked. "Of course, ducks. But come with me anyway, I promise not to harm a hair on your lovely head."

Doughtie looked uncertainly at Drake. "I had made my peace with God."

"Well, I'm sure God wouldn't mind you taking advantage of a miracle, isn't that what they're for?" 

Bemused, Doughtie left his seat and followed the young man off the stage. The crowd swarmed around him with admiring exclamations about his hair and eyelashes and voice and codpiece.

David was nearly apoplectic with rage. "YOU CAN'T! We'll all die, or never be born!"

"Oh, calm down." The head Deeveesqueer went up on stage. "Look, it's very simple. We send the others back without using the amnesia ray, what do they do?"

"Destroy history!" David pulled at his hair, but not too hard.

She turned to Drake. "In our history you made Bright captain of one of your smaller ships (Bright grinned like an idiot), you continued on the course you'd planned and got rich plundering the Spaniards. When you returned to England, you were knighted and even made a member of the Inner Temple."

Drake smiled at that.

"I don't see why you can't still do all that, do you?"

"Nay, but madame, what shall I tell the mariners and gentlemen when we return without Doughtie?"

She shrugged. "You killed him with your own hands in a fit of rage? You took pity and let him escape into the wilderness? You've got them so frightened, you can tell them anything." 

"Francis." Doughtie returned to the stage, smiling and a little rumpled, with one arm around the waist of the handsome young man who'd first spoken to him. "Tell them it was a miracle."

Fletcher's mouth opened and closed a few times. "Miracles are granted only to saints! Thomas Doughtie you are no saint!"

Doughtie smiled. "Indeed, I am not. But it is God's will that I live, therefore it is a miracle."

Drake grunted. "I killed you with my own hands and buried you at night. That, they will believe. But what of your brother; he's bound to mislike this e'en more than your execution and shall cause trouble."

"I shall write him a missive."

The head Deeveesqueer said, "No, better than that! We'll show him!" The vid crew quickly made a limited time holo, and fed Doughtie his lines, including his instructions for John to act as if Drake had executed Thomas.

David was still disgruntled. "Oh, and he'll quietly rot in prison without telling the truth?"

The head Deeveesqueer turned to the Queen. "With the wealth Drake brings back from this venture, you will be able to build up the British fleet and defeat the Spanish. You could well afford to have John Doughtie officially 'forgot' in prison, while you actually free him and give him sufficient money to start a new life for himself under another name."

"I could." Queen Elizabeth considered. "But what necessity have I?"

"None, your Majesty." Thomas knelt on bended knee before her. "But I do beseech thee."

For a moment the Queen was a woman. And Thomas was very handsome and very well-formed. Her expression softened. "And I am moved to grant thy request. Your brother shall go free, Thomas."

David sighed as Queen Elizabeth, Drake, Fletcher and Bright shimmered and returned to the past. "And we never even got to the question of the Peruvian earthworms."

**Author's Note:**

> * That sentence was in a troll diatribe the DV community received. We were vastly amused by the outrage this person expressed, apparently thinking they were addressing some current authority in a country foreign to their own. We may be a tiny fandom, but look! We have in-jokes!


End file.
